Date: 1759

"Their [pedants'] constant overstraining of the Mind / Distorts the Brain, as Horses break their Wind / Or rude Confusions of the Things they read / Get up, like noxious Vapours, in the Head, / Until they have their constant Wanes and Fulls, / And Changes in the Insides of their Skulls."

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1760?

The Grace teaches "When to check the sportive Vein; / When to Fancy give the Rein."

— Langhorne, John (1735-1779)

Date: 1760

"O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay, / Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day, / And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, / Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1760, 1776

"Fond he surveys thy mild maternal face, / His bashful eye still kindling as he views, / And, while thy lenient arm supports his pace, / With beating heart the upland path pursues: / The path that leads, where, hung sublime, / And seen afar, youth's gallant trophies, bright / In Fancy's rainbow r...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1760, 1761

"Reason, collected in herself, disdains / The slavish yoke of arbitrary chains"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1761, 1790

"Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight / She [the mind] looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight; / Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam / From this dull earth, and seek her native home."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

Date: 1761, 1765

"Labour and Want (unhospitable twain) / Chill not the current in Life's salient vein; / Nor damp the spirits, else of sprightly cast, / Nor check the nobler passions of the breast; / Nor blunt the fine Sensation's tender edge, / Which man's chief pride philosophers allege. / Thus some fair ...

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: 1761, 1765

"But, after Fancy's eagle-flights were o'er, / And heav'n-illumin'd Genius could no more; / Thus, conscious all his best essays how vain, / Might the rapt bard conclude his humble strain."

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: 1762-3

"Whatever unto them is brought / Is carried on the wings of thought / Before his throne, where, in full state, / He on their merits holds debate, / Examines, cross-examines, weighs / Their right to censure or to praise."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"[T]he five senses in alliance [may] / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroke, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)